Little Vampire Women Page 8

  “Welcome to Camp Laurence!” said the young host, as they landed with exclamations of delight. The tent was pitched and wickets were arranged on a pleasant green field, with three widespreading oaks in the middle and a smooth strip of turf for croquet.

  Laurie presented them to his friends in the most cordial manner. The lawn was the reception room, and for several minutes a lively scene was enacted there. Meg was grateful to see that Miss Kate, though twenty, was dressed with a simplicity which American girls would do well to imitate. Jo understood why Laurie “primmed up his mouth” when speaking of Kate, for that young lady had a standoff, don’t-touch-me air, which contrasted strongly with the free and easy demeanor of the other girls. Beth took an observation of the new boys and decided that Frank, who was lame, was not “dreadful,” but gentle and feeble, and she would be kind to him on that account. Amy found Grace a well-mannered, merry, little person, and after staring dumbly at one another for a few minutes, they suddenly became very good friends, despite being of different species.

  “Brooke is commander in chief,” Laurie announced cheerfully. “I am commissary general, the other fellows are staff officers, and you, ladies, are company. The tent is for your especial benefit and that oak is your drawing room, this is the messroom, and the third is the camp kitchen. Now, let’s see about dinner.”

  The commander in chief and his aides soon spread the tablecloth with an inviting array of eatables and drinkables, prettily decorated with green leaves and appropriate for vampires and nonvampires alike. A very merry supper it was, for everything seemed fresh and funny, especially the frogs, for they ribbitted furiously whenever a fang touched their thorny backs, and frequent peals of laughter startled a venerable horse who fed nearby. There was a pleasing inequality in the table, which produced many mishaps to cups and plates, acorns dropped in the milk, little black ants partook of the refreshments without being invited, and fuzzy caterpillars swung down from the tree to see what was going on.

  When they could not eat any more, they all adjourned to the drawing room to play games.

  “Do you know Truth?” Laurie asked.

  “I hope so,” said Meg soberly.

  “The game, I mean?”

  “What is it?” said Fred.

  “Why, you pile up your hands, choose a number, and draw out in turn, and the person who draws at the number has to answer truly any question put by the rest. It’s great fun.”

  “Let’s try it,” said Jo, who liked new experiments.

  Everyone piled and drew, and the lot fell to Laurie.

  “Who are your heroes?” asked Jo.

  “Grandfather and Napoleon.”

  “Which lady here do you think prettiest?” said Kate.

  “Margaret.”

  “Which do you like best?” from Fred.

  “Jo, of course.”

  “What silly questions you ask!” And Jo gave a disdainful shrug as the rest laughed at Laurie’s matter-of-fact tone.

  “Try again. Truth isn’t a bad game,” said Fred.

  Jo’s turn came next.

  “What do you most wish for?” said Laurie.

  “A pair of boot lacings,” returned Jo, guessing and defeating his purpose.

  “Not a true answer. You must say what you really do want most.”

  “Genius. Don’t you wish you could give it to me, Laurie?” And she slyly smiled in his disappointed face.

  “What virtues do you most admire in a man?” asked Kate.

  “Courage and honesty.”

  “How many people have you devoured?” asked Fred.

  Meg gasped as Laurie jumped to his feet, personally offended by the insult, for everyone knew the March girls were out-of-the-ordinary vampires and did not deserve such vile suspicion. Also, he’d assured them on his honor that his friends would not ask vulgar questions about their feeding habits, and here one was at the very first opportunity.

  Jo felt her bosom enemy stir and rise slowly, anger coursing through her veins much in the way blood once had. Her eyes, always a sharp gray, glowed violently orange as she imagined tearing out Fred’s throat. Her fangs throbbed with thirst. One movement, a slight one at that, and the smug smile would be removed from his face forever. Just a few inches…

  But Marmee’s voice, calm and wise and never far from her heart, warned her to control her temper. “Go on, dear,” it said, “patiently and bravely, and always believe that no one sympathizes more tenderly with you than your loving mother.”

  Jo leaned back and said calmly, “Well, I think Truth is a very silly game. Let’s have a sensible game of croquet.”

  Frank, Beth, Amy, and Grace sat down to watch the game played by the other six. Mr. Brooke chose Meg and Fred. Laurie took Kate and Jo. All proceeded smoothly until the last wicket, which Jo was through and had missed the stroke. Fred was close behind her and his turn came before hers. He gave a stroke, his ball hit the wicket, and stopped an inch on the wrong side. No one was very near, and running up to examine, he gave it a sly nudge with his toe, which put it just an inch on the right side.

  “I’m through! Now, Miss Jo, I’ll settle you, and get in first,” cried the young gentleman, swinging his mallet for another blow.

  “You pushed it. I saw you. It’s my turn now,” said Jo sharply.

  “Upon my word, I didn’t move it. It rolled a bit, perhaps, but that is allowed. So, stand off please, and let me have a go at the stake.”

  “We don’t cheat in America, but you can, if you choose,” said Jo angrily.

  “Vampires are a deal the most tricky, everybody knows. There you go!” returned Fred, croqueting her ball far away.

  Jo opened her lips to say something rude, but checked herself in time and stood a minute, hammering down a wicket with all her might, while Fred hit the stake and declared himself out with much exultation. She went off to get her ball, and was a long time finding it among the bushes, but she came back, looking cool and quiet, and waited her turn patiently. It took several strokes to regain the place she had lost, and when she got there, the other side had nearly won, for Brooke’s ball was the last but one and lay near the stake.

  “By George, it’s all up with us! Good-bye, Mr. Brooke. Miss Jo owes me one, so you are finished,” cried Fred excitedly, as they all drew near to see the finish.

  “Vampires have a trick of being generous to their enemies,” said Jo, with a look that made the lad redden, “especially when they beat them,” she added, as, leaving the tutor’s ball untouched, she won the game by a clever stroke.

  Such gentlemanly behavior from a parasitic creature inferior to him in every way offended the Englishman to such a degree that, with a deep-hued cry of fury, he pulled a stake from the ground, lifted it high in the air, and threw it directly at Jo’s chest.

  To Jo’s everlasting disgust, she didn’t move. All her fine training as a vampire defender, the many hours of study, the pile of books she’d read, all the feints and maneuvers she’d memorized, came to naught in this moment when she needed them most, the stake sailing through the air intent on its target. It was Beth, amazing Beth who tiptoed upon the earth as if afraid to disturb the grass, who engaged her super vampire speed and saved Jo from certain annihilation by catching the stake a mere half inch from its mark.

  Nobody could believe it, least of all Beth, who sank softly to her knees, the stake clutched in her hand, then slipping from her fingers as her clenched fist opened almost by compulsion. The company stared first at Beth, who was too shocked to shrink from the attention, then Fred, a foreigner surrounded by hostiles.

  Although much alarmed by the astounding turn of events, Meg tried to smooth things over as she imagined a fine vampire lady like Mrs. Moffat might, by introducing a new topic as if nothing untoward had happened. “How beautifully you do it!” she said, with a look at Kate’s sketch pad, which was open on the blanket. “I wish I could draw.”

  The rest of the company remained frozen, unsure of how to proceed. Laurie thought Fred should be bro
ught up on charges of assault and attempted murder and was happy to drag the villain to the local magistrate himself. Jo thought they should re-create the entire episode so she could attempt to handle it in a way befitting an aspiring defender. Fred rather thought he should run.

  Kate was scared for her brother and worried for her siblings, innocent little Grace and lame Frank. Keeping one eye on Fred, she replied graciously to Meg, though her voice was stretched thin with fear, “Why don’t you learn? I should think you had taste and talent for it.”

  “I haven’t time,” explained Meg.

  “Your mamma prefers other accomplishments, I fancy. So did mine, but I proved to her that I had talent by taking a few lessons privately, and then she was quite willing I should go on,” Kate said, relaxing just a bit as the territory grew more familiar. “Can’t you do the same with your governess?”

  “I have none.”

  “I forgot young ladies in America go to school more than we. Very fine schools they are, too, Papa says. You go to a private one, I suppose?”

  “I don’t go at all. I am a governess myself.”

  “Oh, indeed!” said Miss Kate, but she might as well have said, “Dear me, how dreadful!” for her tone implied it, and something in her face made Meg cringe, and wish Jo would attack Miss Kate rather than Fred.

  Mr. Brooke, who had been wondering how to handle the situation, which, as the only authority figure present, was his responsibility, observed the change in Meg’s expression and said quickly, “Young ladies in America love independence as much as their ancestors did, and are admired and respected for supporting themselves.”

  Realizing her unintentional slight might make her brother’s life forfeit, Kate rushed to make amends. “Oh, yes, of course it’s very nice and proper in them to do so. We have many most respectable and worthy young women who do the same and are employed by the nobility, because, being the daughters of gentlemen, they are both well bred and accomplished, you know.”

  But her patronizing tone only made matters worse for it hurt Meg’s pride, and made her work seem not only more distasteful, but degrading.

  An awkward pause followed in which everyone present, including innocent little Grace, expected Jo to bite Kate’s neck for this fresh insult to her sister or at the very least bleed the brother like a leech. But in fact Jo was not attending to the exchange, which seemed to her wholly incomprehensible at a time such as this, when she had very nearly allowed herself to be staked. The shame was almost unbearable and she occupied her mortified mind by running through the five steps of the Grosengauer Gambit: leap, somersault, pike dive, cartwheel, round kick.19

  She’d practiced it a dozen times in her attic garret and knew the moves as intimately as her own hand. And yet she’d stood there like a bubble waiting to be popped!

  “Did the German song suit, Miss March?” inquired Mr. Brooke, breaking the uncomfortable moment with yet another new topic.

  “Oh, yes! It was very sweet, and I’m much obliged to whoever translated it for me.” And Meg’s downcast face brightened as she spoke.

  “Don’t you read German?” asked Miss Kate with a look of surprise.

  “Not very well. My father, who taught me, is away, and I don’t get on very fast alone, for I’ve no one to correct my pronunciation.”

  “Try a little now. Here is Schiller’s Mary Stuart and a tutor who loves to teach.” And Mr. Brooke retrieved his book from the blanket and handed it to her with an inviting smile.

  “It’s so hard I’m afraid to try,” said Meg, grateful, but so bashful in the presence of the accomplished young lady beside her that she had completely forgotten Fred’s attempted murder of Jo.

  Kate volunteered to read a bit to encourage Meg, and, hoping to provide a distraction so her unfortunate brother could make his escape, she read one of the most beautiful passages in a perfectly correct but perfectly expressionless manner.

  Mr. Brooke made no comment as she returned the book to Meg, who said innocently, “I thought it was poetry.”

  “Some of it is. Try this passage.”

  “Enough,” cried Frank, who couldn’t bear the tension any longer. “Either kill him or let him go, but let’s not have any more of this polite, vacuous chatter.”

  “Amen,” said Laurie, who knew which of the two he’d rather do.

  “Please,” Kate said, her manner full of expression now. “Please. He’s just a boy and he doesn’t always think before he acts. Forgive him. His dislike of vampires runs deep and strong, for his twin was made lame by one, you see, and even though the assailant was apprehended and punished for acts unbecoming an Englishman, the damage was done. My brother will never walk without the crutch. Fred only acted overzealously in his love for his brother. Must you punish him for that?”

  Jo, who was by far the most abused, thought it only fair and square to let Fred off the hook. He was a scoundrel and a cheat, which were terrible things to be, but she was a coward, which was a dozen times worse. “Let him go, Laurie. It’s all right with me. I don’t want to play croquet with him or Truth but I don’t think he needs to be run into town or strung up on a gibbet. The gentlemanly thing to do is to shake on it and think about it no more.” So saying, she held out her milky white hand.

  It was galling for Fred to accept the offer, for in proposing they let bygones be bygones, the vampire had once again shown him up as an Englishman. But a look at Grace’s scared face had him acquiescing immediately.

  Brooke suggested another game of croquet, which everyone save Jo complied with after the stake was reinserted into the ground, but the joy had gone out of the night. Fred sulked something awful and Kate brooded over the fact that she was playing croquet with a governess. The game ended with a listless victory for Laurie’s team, and everyone agreed it was time to go.

  On the lawn where it had gathered, the little party separated with cordial good nights and good-byes, for the Vaughns were going to Canada. As the four sisters went home through the garden, they marveled again at Beth’s remarkable midair catch. Amy couldn’t wait to relay the events to Marmee and ran ahead. Beth trailed after her, anxious to downplay her part in the affair, lest she receive credit of which she wasn’t worthy.

  Meg linked her arm through Jo’s and shook her head. “I always said she was a little saint,” claimed Meg, as if there could be no further doubt of it.

  Chapter Ten

  SECRETS

  Jo was very busy in the garret, for the October evenings were long and comfortable. For two or three hours the moon shone brightly through the high window, showing Jo seated on the old sofa, writing busily, with her papers spread out upon a trunk before her, while Scrabble XXI, the latest pet rat in a long succession, promenaded the beams overhead, accompanied by his oldest son, a fine young fellow, who was evidently very proud of his whiskers. Quite absorbed in her work, Jo scribbled away till the last page was filled, when she signed her name with a flourish and threw down her pen, exclaiming…

  “There, I’ve done my best! If this won’t suit I shall have to wait till I can do better.”

  Lying back on the sofa, she read the application carefully through, making dashes here and there, and putting in many exclamation points, which looked like little balloons. Then she tied it up with a smart red ribbon, and sat a minute looking at it with a sober, wistful expression, which plainly showed how earnest her work had been. Jo’s desk up here was an old tin kitchen20 which hung against the wall. In it she kept her papers and a few books, safely shut away from Scrabble, who, being likewise of a literary turn, as were many of his ancestors, was fond of making a circulating library of such books as were left in his way by eating the leaves.

  She put on her hat and jacket as noiselessly as possible, and going to the back entry window, got out upon the roof of a low porch, swung herself down to the grassy bank, and took a roundabout way to the road. Once there, she composed herself, hailed a passing omnibus, and rolled away to town, looking very merry and mysterious.

  If anyon
e had been watching her, he would have thought her movements decidedly peculiar, for on alighting, she went off at a great pace till she reached a certain number in a certain busy street. Having found the place with some difficulty, she went into the doorway, looked up the dirty stairs, and after standing stock-still a minute, suddenly dived into the street and walked away as rapidly as she came. This maneuver she repeated several times, to the great amusement of a black-eyed young gentleman lounging in the window of a building opposite. On returning for the third time, Jo gave herself a shake, pulled her hat over her eyes, and walked up the stairs, looking as if she were going to have all her teeth out.

  There was a dentist’s sign, among others, which adorned the entrance, and after staring a moment at the pair of artificial jaws which slowly opened and shut to draw attention to a fine set of teeth, the young gentleman put on his coat, took his hat, and went down to post himself in the opposite doorway, saying with a smile and a shiver, “It’s like her to come alone, but if she has a bad time she’ll need someone to help her home.”

  In ten minutes Jo came running downstairs with the general appearance of a person who had just passed through a trying ordeal of some sort. When she saw the young gentleman she looked anything but pleased, and passed him with a nod. But he followed, asking with an air of sympathy, “Did you have a bad time?”

  “Not very.”

  “You got through quickly.”

  “Yes, thank goodness!”

  “Why did you go alone?”

  “Didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “You’re the oddest fellow I ever saw. How many did you have out?”

  Jo looked at her friend as if she did not understand him, then began to laugh as if mightily amused at something. The dear boy thought she’d had teeth removed. How delightfully absurd to believe a vampire needed a dentist!

  “What are you laughing at? You are up to some mischief, Jo,” said Laurie, looking mystified.

  Jo didn’t respond but shrugged rather carelessly, as if hoping to throw him off the scent but knowing she only stoked the fire of his curiosity.